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Please bear with me while I continue making this page. Religions Of Tarania     Tarania has two main variants of religion, although there are believers in many other religions.  One, believed only by a few small groups of people, is that there is one All-Powerful Being. The other common religion is that of the Pantheon of the Gods.
    Almost all creatures of Tarania, however, believe that there are many gods (the actual number is disputed) and that all play a large role in day-to-day life.  They worship the gods who they think are the best or safest to worship, but believe in many gods.  (usually about 35)  There are 14 Greater Gods, and about 20 or so Lesser Gods. Here is a summary of their beliefs. The religion of the followers of the All-Powerful Being

The Pantheon of the gods and their followers' religion
The creation of Tarania and The creation of the Gods
The creation of the Elves and Halflings by Iyelarno and Matroku
The creation of Undead by Liess-Ta	The appearance of Humans
The creation of Lizards and Snakes by Liess-Ta	The creation of the Fish by Neroo
The creation of ogres, goblins, and their ilk	The creation of the other humanoids
A summary of the major gods' names, the races of their followers, and their alignments

    Riyavari, the All-Powerful Being, according to its followers, created everything, is responsible for everything that happens, knows everything, and is everything.  They believe that they are tiny parts of Riyavari.
    Riyavari's followers have one ultimate goal: to change the world for the better.  They go about this in many different ways, however.  The younger or less devoted followers of Riyavari may forget their goal of bettering the world often, and also may choose to do things entirely unrelated to bettering the world except that simply to rest one's mind, body, and soul will allow them to be more effective in the future.  Often, Riyavari's followers fall prey to petty emotions and feelings which hamper their ability to achieve their goals.  This is completely accepted as well, though they will remind each other of what is happening and how to correct their mistakes when they see others being affected by these "lesser" feelings.  When they realize this has happened they always do their best to avoid being bothered by the fact that they have been told they were wrong, and instead accept it and try to learn from their mistake so that they can avoid doing the same thing in the future.
  Many of its followers also believe that Riyavari will judge everyone, their thoughts, feelings, and actions, and that when people die, those who did good acts in life will be rewarded for every positive action, with whatever they choose to make them happy.  Those who committed evil in life will have to relive every situation in life where they harmed another, from their victim's perspective.  Thus, most people are believed to go through both the reliving of their evil acts and the rewarding for their good acts.
    The followers of Riyavari do not generally worry about exactly who or what Riyavari is, or what it is like. They believe it is responsible for all of the effects that others attribute to the whole pantheon of the gods. They also believe that Riyavari's appearances as an evil god are some sort of test of its subjects or a way make the world interesting, but that the true nature of the Riyavari is good.
    A common belief among Riyavari's followers is that those who seek power will ultimately be betrayed and destroyed, while those who seek knowlege and wisdom and those who seek to help others will ultimately have the power to drastically change the world for the better, and will be rewarded for it either in life or in death.  Knowlege, they believe, is a powerful tool to change the world, allowing them to affect powers otherwise completely beyond their control.  Without the correct knowlege they could not lead other people towards goodness, or wield their own powers for good, such as the use of magic, weapons, or even the use of agriculture or plant-gathering to feed the poor and the helpless.
    Riyavari's followers also believe that those who completely control themselves and their thoughts, feelings, and emotions to strive only for good will become immune to pain and suffering, secure in the knowlege that they will be rewarded for their goodness.  They strive to rid themselves of the evil in themselves which causes them to suffer, removing from themselves those selfish desires which cause them to wish for things they cannot have.  A person in physical pain, they believe, should not be bothered by this for no reason.  If they can be healed, then what good does it do to complain.  If the person cannot be healed, their is still nothing to be gained from complaining.  Ultimately, one can only try to either help oneself heal or to obtain help in healing.  Thus pain serves no purpose and where possible should be completely ignored, except as a tool to find out what needs to be healed and which parts of the body do not.  They believe that to kill any living animal is to kill a part of Riyavari, and thus destroy a part of themselves.  Because of this they only kill when they find it absolutely necessary.  Riyavari's followers practice strict control of their thoughts and actions, always striving to help make the world better.  They will try to avoid actions which could ultimately have bad effects on the world, even little ones like acting mean to another, however harmless it seems. 

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A World Is Born...
The legends of the world, according to the High Priest to Iyelarno, Reolu of Dradah.    "In the beginning, Matroku, Mother of All, was alone in the Great Black Void.  She became lonely, so she pulled wisps of Essence from the Void, and used them to create Erah-Lahh, God of Law and Keeper of the Sacred Scrolls.  She then created DRACHE, the great god of War, Stone, and Thunder.  As she created Drache, a shadow of the great god gradually appeared.  As Drache grew, so did the shadow.  The shadow, when created, formed in to the most powerful and diabolical of all Evil beings, Liess-Ta, god of torture and death.  She created many more gods, each with their own quirks and tendencies.  For every Good god she created, an evil shadow of the god appeared, creating two opposing gods at once rather than one at a time.  But, after many tries, Matroku finally found a way to prevent the evil god from ever forming, thus there are more Good gods than Evil. Matroku, after creating all of the gods, found that she had worked for a million years.  By this time she was very tired, so she rested for a short time, but soon decided companions were not enough.  She needed a Place.  The Great Black Void was not enough of a place to exist.  Matroku wanted a World.  So she began creating Tarania. She pulled in wisps of Essence from the Void, putting them all together.   She formed them in to the world of Tarania; the oceans, the land, the rivers, lakes, trees and plants.   After Matroku had toiled for ten thousand years, her task was finally done. 
    After Matroku created Tarania, the still-young gods wanted to create followers.  Matroku, Drache, Uroped, Iyelarno, Neroo, Majj-Tay, and Ciel'Yalu decided to work together to create followers of Good, while at the same time Ghaxdoz, Alarey, Liess-Ta, and Garvossh went their separate ways, creating their own evil minions.  The good gods began to create the first Elves. After many years, all but Iyelarno and Matroku tired of the hard work.  Iyelarno worked hard, and found that the First Elves were exactly what he had hoped for. However, Matroku thought that the Elves were too different from herself and that she would never relate to them, so she began creating the Halflings, working together with Iyelarno toward perfection for their followers.  Many years later, when Iyelarno was about to finish creating the Elves, the other gods began to create their own minions hurriedly, not wanting to be lacking something the other gods had. The other gods hurriedly made their followers to finish as soon as Iyelarno finished the Elves. When Iyelarno finished, he proclaimed his creation the most beautiful thing in the universe. Upon seeing Iyelarno's creations, Garvossh, creator of the Orcs, Goblins, Ogres, and their ilk said the Elves were pathetic little ornaments and nothing more, saying that the beauty of his creations lay in their power, and that the strength of the Orcs far outweighed the beauty of the Elves. But still, none of the Gods' followers had life.  The new followers sat, immobile as the clay the gods molded them from.  Garvossh, intending to smash all of Iyelarno's and Matroku's followers, said he could give them life.  Iyelarno did not trust him, and fought with Garvossh to prevent his work from being destroyed.  Garvossh swung his great battle axe at Iyelarno, hitting him in the shoulder and spilling his blood over the First Elves.  Iyelarno drew back, and the sun cried two great tears for him, which became Tarania's moons.  Little droplets from these tears fell upon the First Elves, and the combination of Iyelarno's hard work and blood with tears from the sun magically gave life to the Elves.  Garvossh, having defeated Iyelarno, was about to kill the First Elves.  Iyelarno, seeing this, ignored his injury and drew his bow, firing an arrow through one of Garvossh's eyes.  Garvossh bellowed in pain, and turned to attack Iyelarno.  Iyelarno shot another arrow, hitting Garvossh in the chest.  Garvossh cried out for help but none of the gods were on his side.  He began to run away from Iyelarno, not wanting to be attacked any more.  As Garvossh turned to run, Iyelarno staggered and fell, unconscious from the wound inflicted by Garvossh's axe.  The First Elves ran to their creator and hurriedly hid him, and nursed him back to health.  Garvossh went off, alone, to his lair to heal his wounds. 
    Garvossh, in his lair, finally healed his wounds from the fight with Iyelarno, but his anger at Iyelarno had only grown worse.  He was so angry the anger grew a life force of its own, and entered the bodies of the as-yet lifeless evil races, bringing them to life.  Ever since, the goblins, ogres, orcs, and their ilk have always been creatures of great anger, marauding through the world trying to conquer or kill all others. 
    Though at the time, none other than Liess-Ta himself knew of it, Liess-Ta began creating his minions, the Undead, before Matroku had finished creating Tarania.  However, he didn't finish creating them until after the Elves and Halflings had been created.  Liess-Ta pulled Essence of Evil from the void, putting it together to form shady humanoid figures of total evil, completely subservient to him.  But this Evil had no life force.  It would not move of its own accord or do anything except when Liess-Ta directly willed it to himself.  He touched the Evil directly, pushing a wisp of Essence of Evil in to the form, and the evil crackled to life, stealing a part of Liess-Ta's soul, and knocking him unconscious.  To this day, all of the undead gain their power from that part of Liess-Ta. 
    A creature of light, a mirror image of the First Undead, sprang to life at the same instant as the first of the Undead, a pure opposite of the First Undead's Evil. The Undead, thinking to destroy its mirror image, sprang upon the First Human, trying to kill it.  The blow, however, had a different effect than expected.  It put a large splinter of Evil in to the human, and at the same time a tiny sliver of Goodness lodged in the undead.  This is why humans must forever fight the evil inside themselves. Undead, however, were affected little, but the small potential for them to be swayed toward goodness will always exist, and some Undead find they have a larger share of Goodness inside them, permanently confusing them as to who or what they are.  The human escaped, and started a whole new tribe, meanwhile, the Undead began creating more evil minions to do his and Liess-Ta's bidding. 
    Neroo, God of the sea found that his followers, those who lived on the coast, had plenty of fresh water but needed food.  He created salt, and placed it in the oceans.  He then pulled the salt together to form the first fish. He taught his followers to catch and eat these fish.  He then realized that the salt of the oceans had fouled the water, making it no longer drinkable.  To solve this, he created the wind to carry the water up, and turn it in to clouds, while leaving behind the salt.  The clouds would then pour out their water as rain.  The rain would then flow across Tarania in mighty rivers, giving the followers of Neroo and also every other creature of the land water to drink. 
The Evil God, Liess-Ta, slept for decades after losing part of his soul to the First Undead.  He decided that creating more undead in this fashion was too taxing, so he set out to create minions for himself in a different way.  He took five fish of different kinds from Neroo's seas, and laid them on the barren deserts to dry.  He then took Essence of Evil, and put it in to the fish.  Somehow, this caused the fish to be able to breathe air, but at the same time caused them to lose their fins.  This caused great pain to the fish.  Liess-Ta then took dirt, and smothered three of the fish in it.  When they came out of the dirt, they had formed legs from it, so they could walk around.  Two of the fish were not smothered in dirt, and these grew no legs.  They were the snakes.  They resented having to slither around, so festered a deep hatred in their hearts.  This hatred caused them to form large fangs, and put poison in to their mouths, making them the most evil of all animals. Note: It is not known how many gods there are, but most believe that the fourteen listed below are the most powerful.

God's name	Alignment1	Races of the God's followers2	Domain
Matroku	CG	Halfling, Human	Halflings, Agriculture
Erah-Lahh	LN	Human	Kings, Law, the Sacred Scrolls**, the Sun
Drache	LG	Dwarf, Human, Elf	War, Stone, thunder
Liess-Ta	CE	Elf, Human, Dwarf, Gnome, Evil races*	Undead, lizards, snakes, Evil, torture
Jalea of the Wilds	N or CN	Elf, Gnome	wilderness, Neutrality
Neroo	N or NG	Gnome, Human	wind, water, birds, fish
Garvossh	NE	Evil Races*	Battle, Evil Races*
Uroped the Defender	NG	Halfling, Elf,Gnome	Halflings, protection
Zitochke	CE	Halfling, Dwarf, Evil races*	treachery, mischief, fire
Iyelarno	CG	Elf, Halfling	Elves, nature, the Carefree
Alarey the Oppressor	LE	Elf, Halfling	oppression, hatred
Majj Tay	NG	Dwarf, Gnome	crafts, work, food
Ciel'Yalu	CG	Human, Elf, Halfling	children, silliness, jokes, music
Veoltas	CG	Gnome, Human	Mischief, Gnomes, fun

¹Alignment refers to the god's alignment, which generally dictates the alignment of followers
²This indicates the races of most of the god's followers
*evil races include ogres, giants, orcs, goblins, and other similar evil beings.
**The sacred scrolls are said to contain the true laws of Tarania and The Great Black Void.  The gods dictate everything, including how the dead are Judged.